From the word “Spiral” that is obviously alike with the formation of tornados as the circulation of air goes down to the ground, the Spiral of Silence, is a spiral of experiences and situations which leads you to mute yourself up without having to directly notice it. It doesn’t happen suddenly; it happens from the development of your own thoughts that leads to you either being a bandwagon or staying quiet to not get too much attention from being different.

A lot of the silence can come from the reaction of people on their opinions and the majority’s opinion. For example, if a person has an opinion about the Marcos Burial, and his or her opinion states that they are neutral in the situation –they don’t mind thanking Marcos for his fulfillments and yet is still disgusted with Marcos’ fault for the death of a lot of people in Martial Law–. Now, this issue is very timely and a lot of people, like students, do have a say in this even if they were not born on the time that Martial Law was declared. Other people would pressure the said person to take sides because there’s no in between for them. A lot of students are most likely to hate Marcos and they could be pressured to agree for the sake that they don’t have to fight for their opinion of being neutral in the situation. However, the Spiral of Silence isn’t always negative. It’s also a reaction for people to stay quiet in situations that they wouldn’t want to just speak up but their opinions will stay for themselves alone.

The Knowledge Gap Theory, on the other hand, is very literal with its title. The silence of people is triggered when the knowledge of a person can’t tackle all aspects to be aware of their surroundings because of their cultural background and resources. It’s like differentiating someone who lives in the streets, someone who lives in the mountain, and someone who lives in the city. If issues that circles around internet are being asked, most probably the person who lives in the city could answer it because they can reach the media more accurately because of Wi-Fi signals. While the person who lives in the streets doesn’t even have the proper basic needs to own something that could have internet connections and the person who lives in the mountain could have acceptable resources but unreliable source of signals because of the lack of connection above the mountains (logical explanation).

The Gap can range not only from where the person stays/lives but the age of the person, religion, and even gender. Obviously, all human beings have different lives and different sets of experiences –all of that contributes to the knowledge the person can give out to people and receive from others as well.

Spiral of Silence and Knowledge Gap Theory are 2 different ideas that can be connected to each other because of the different reasons people are muted in inevitable situations. The way people can talk about their opinions can say a lot to what principles they have in life. If they can speak up without having to care about others and if they can gain knowledge without having to rely on the common things people talk about, they are fighting against the theory. Since both ideas are only part of the communication theory people are living in, it can either be positive or negative.